Houma, Thibodaux locations near heart of restaurant’s founder

Kathrine SchmidtStaff Writer

Sunday

Mar 15, 2009 at 12:00 AM

HOUMA — Todd Graves has built an empire around the humble chicken finger. But as his Raising Cane’s restaurant chain opens locations as far away as Las Vegas and Minnesota, Graves is as connected as ever to the Cajun roots he shares with Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, where he opened two new stores last week.“Houma’s culture matches with Raising Cane’s — working hard while having fun and enjoying good quality food,” Graves, 37, said in an interview at his east-Houma restaurant.The chain offers a simple menu of chicken fingers and special sauce, french fries, Texas toast and cole slaw.Seated beside the company’s mascot, an English yellow Labrador named Cane II, Graves joked and greeted well-wishers Wednesday at the grand openings of two stores at 945 Grand Caillou Road in Houma and 301 N. Canal Blvd. in Thibodaux.He’s always been an entrepreneur, but not always with the success he has today.As a young man growing up near the LSU campus in Baton Rouge Graves was always looking for business potential where he saw a need. That ranged from selling lemonade to pushing a lawn mower or charging a few bucks to stencil house numbers on the curb.During his college years, Graves saw a dish picking up momentum in his home market. “Chicken fingers just got really popular, man, everywhere you went,” he said.Chickens, of course, have no fingers. What Graves sells are strips of chicken meat that are fried in a batter.When he co-wrote a business plan with a friend, the idea fell flat in an LSU business class, receiving the worst grade in the class.Rejection struck again when he put on a “cheap suit,” picked up a briefcase with gold combination locks and headed to local banks seeking loans.When bankers learned he had neither savings nor restaurant experience, he said, “they pretty much laughed me out the door.”Despite the roadblocks, he couldn’t set aside the dream.So Graves did whatever it took to save the money needed for it. He held a job as a boilermaker and also worked dangerous, 20-hour days as a commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska.When Graves finally saved enough to get a loan, he scrounged up used equipment and opened his first store near the LSU campus in 1996.“We waved people coming in from the bars,” he said. “We got busy. Every day got busier and busier.”Cane’s took off, and eight stores opened in Baton Rouge.Graves had his eye on new markets, and he opened his 13th store in Houma, in 2003. It was a natural fit. As a teenager, he spent time on the beach in Grand Isle and went fishing in Cocodrie. and he has close friends from Terrebonne and Lafourche. Among them is Thibodaux native, former LSU football player and restaurateur Ruffin Rodrigue. Boysie Bollinger, chief executive officer at Lockport-based Bollinger Shipyards, is also acquainted.Graves and Bollinger take an annual dove-hunting trip together to Cordoba, Argentina, he said.The first Houma store, at 1723 Martin Luther King Blvd., is consistently among the top three or four producers in the chain, which now has 80 locations, Graves said.“From the get-go, it’s just been a great place to do business,” he said of Terrebonne and Lafourche.And while the Louisiana feel easily translated from the state capital to Nicholls State University, Graves said preserving that Louisiana culture is the biggest challenge as the company expands.“It’s not a typical fast-food type of place,” he said. “People don’t know our brand. You have to start all over again.”And successful it has been, making him a millionaire at age 28. The chain was named the second-fastest-growing food-and-beverage company in Louisiana by Inc. Magazine.The restaurant loves giving back, with more than 25 percent of profits going to local charities in the host communities, the company said. It’s brought some fame, too — Graves and his wife, Gwen, went on the FOX reality show “Secret Millionaire” and helped with hurricane relief in Plaquemines Parish. Locally, Raising Cane’s was one of the first restaurants to re-open in Terrebonne after Hurricane Gustav.Though many windows were blown out, the store cleaned up and served a line of about 75 cars stretching to the Home Depot parking lot in the days following the storm, recalls Grand Caillou store manager Michael Brown, 25, who helped out.Outside the business, Graves enjoys hunting and fishing, as well as cooking with his children, daughter Sophia, 6, and Charlie, 4.Even the namesake canine of the company has Louisiana roots. When he got the first yellow Labrador in college as a duck-hunting dog, his sister wanted to name it Sugarcane.But Graves thought the dog needed a tougher name, like Raising Cain, but decided to keep the “Cane” part of the name.The original Cane died some years ago, but the 65-pound Raising Cane II, 9-years-old, is a frequent visitor at the office.And she also carries on the company’s philanthropic spirit as a certified therapy dog.Cane II enjoys hunting, too, but doesn’t have quite the same focus as her predecessor, a dedicated retriever, Graves said. She picks up a few ducks but afterward just likes to socialize and enjoy the outdoors. “She thinks she’s one of the hunters,” Graves said.

Staff Writer Kathrine Schmidt can be reached at 857-2204 or kathrine.schmidt@houmatoday.com.

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